When the Future Comes Calling
by Yellowtail555
Summary: In which Rose is scared of the future and James hates to admit she's right. Cousincest.


Once again for Lady's The Pairing One Hour/Hardest Challenge with MIH again, which is writing 1,000 words in an hour. This story is exactly 1,000 (intended on my part, yes) and uses the prompts: Dreams of Future, Summer Break, When the Future Comes Calling (as the title), and June 30th. I hope you enjoy and if you're reviewing (please review) I'd like to know how I did on the dialogue because I'm really not use to writing dialogue centered stories.

Rose was sitting in her cousin's garden when James found her, still yawning and buttoning up his robes. She looked up at him and then back out over the garden.

"Rose, it's only 6 am, for Merlin's sake, not to mention a weekend. What are you doing here?"

"I needed to see you."

He sighed and took a seat beside her on the dew -covered ground.

"And you figured that by sitting under this sunflower silently would somehow end up with you talking to me?"

"Pretty much. It worked, didn't it?"

She was impossible to argue with, he knew that and yet he kept at it. "And why are you here when you could be, oh I don't know, _sleeping_?"

"Same reason you came out here instead of staying in bed. You needed to see me and you've always been able to figure out when I'm around you."

"Rose, it's been years, okay? I have a job now. I have my own flat. Merlin, I have a _girlfriend_."

"No, you don't. And even if you did, that wouldn't change a thing."

"How do you know I don't? Have you been spying on me?"

"I'm not that desperate, James. It's obvious. Look at you. You don't smell like perfume, you didn't shower last night-"

"Rose!"

"What, you didn't. I'll grant you the fact that it's a weekend if you let me get to the most important detail."

"And?"

"If you had a girlfriend, you wouldn't have come out to see me."

He fixed his robes and got to his feet. "That's it, I'm leaving."

"No! James, you can't leave!"

"And why in Merlin's name can't I?"

"Because I'm scared."

"You? You're Rose Weasley, you're 23 years old, you're completely independent, and you have a boyfriend who you'd hopefully much rather tell these things to than me."

"How do you know?"

"Well, I'll admit that I'm not as good at this as you are but Fred told me a few weeks ago. Congratulations." He was bitter, he couldn't deny it.

"What's the date?"

"June 30th, why?"

"Because this marks the end of my first week without him."

"Rose…"

"Time's catching up with me, James. Like you said, I'm 23, I have a respectable job, and no boys have ever cared about that. I missed it. I missed dating when I was in Hogwarts and if I had, I might be married right now like Molly and Dom and Fred and Vic and Roxanne and Louis and Lily. Or in a good, long-term relationship like Lucy and Hugo and Al. But I'm not."

"I'm not either."

"That's why I'm here."

He pretended that he was fine with that as the reason she was there. He pretended he didn't want her there for _him_. He pretended that the reason she'd been alone during Hogwarts wasn't the same as the reason he was.

"Someday your Prince Charming will come."

She laughed and it was cold… bitter. He realized they really hadn't changed much since she was a fourth year and he was a fifth year and the years that followed. They were still single, and they still both needed each other.

"I don't want a Prince Charming. I've been alone long enough, I'm not waiting for that. I wish I could say the reason I'm still single is because I'm waiting for the perfect person but I've realized I've stopped caring who the person is as long as there's _someone_."

"Rose… he'll find you. The right person will find you."

"I've given him long enough. I use to dream of the future, James, and now I just wish I was back in the past. I need to be…"

He held her to him because he didn't know what anyone could say was wrong with that. She pressed her cheek against his chest and wrapped her arms around him and his fingers were enlaced in her auburn hair (not quite Weasley red but that's what he'd always liked about her, her difference) and he could pretend that it was another night, years before, when they were both still in their Hogwarts uniforms and she was upset over another matter.

"I've been lucky enough in this life." Rose gulped. "I found someone once and then I gave him up and this is fate's way of punishing me, I know it is. How could I have been so stupid!"

He didn't speak because she wouldn't have wanted him to all those years ago.

"The future's here now and so I have to live with that and I wish I didn't… didn't have to. The future's come calling and I don't wanna open the door."

He didn't want to open the door either, James knew. He wished he was in the past just as much as she did. They were alike in these sorts of ways which is why they had loved each other before and… and might love each other again. Rose was always right; right about him not having a girlfriend, right about him going to look for her, and right about not wanting to embrace the future.

"I know." He said, trying to make his voice calm. It was all he could say without letting everything else and it was hardly comforting. He held her against him and knew that a few months ago this would have been what he wanted most, _her_, but now he was just scared he was losing her.

"But it's pounding on the door and if I don't open it, I'm gonna be bull-dozed by everything so I try to squeeze it open and only let in a few things but the door snaps off its hinges and everything comes crashing in and I'm 23 and I've only had one love in my life and I let him go."

She's talking crazy and James isn't even sure she's listening to him but he finally gets some of that Gryffindor courage he was always supposed to have and asks, "Who?"

"You."


End file.
